Every year since 1973, the federal government has recognized August 26 as Women’s Equality Day. This year, it’s going to be a little different. That’s because the day — the anniversary of the signing into law of the Nineteenth Amendment, which granted women the right to vote — comes a little over a week before confirmation hearings are due to start for Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s Supreme Court pick, who could cast the deciding vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Too often, survivors of sexual misconduct have to be “perfect victims” in order to be believed. They must dress in perfect clothes (nothing too short or revealing), report the crime perfectly (delays are impermissible), and, perhaps most importantly, have a perfect past. Fail on any of these counts and they risk being branded as liars by those eager to find a reason to discount the testimony of women. But survivors of sexual assault aren’t paragons of perfection. They’re people , and some of them are people who have themselves done terrible things, including assault others. Until we can accept this fact, and dismantle our preconceived notions about how survivors and perpetrators behave, the work of #MeToo won’t be done.

Sherell Bates, 34 weeks pregnant, was trying to pay for notebooks and other school supplies for her two older children at the Staples in Pineville, North Carolina, when she was pulled aside by an officer monitoring the store. The officer asked Bates what was under her shirt. Her response: “Twins.” The officer didn’t believe her, Bates said. So she lifted her shirt to show him her belly, “so he could see that I’m just a regular pregnant person buying school supplies,” she told a reporter.

The trajectory for too many women who experience sexual harassment is out: out of a job, out of a career, out of the field. And as we’re seeing in more and more cases, the trajectory for men accused of harassment is up, or at least back: back into their old industries, into their expensive homes, into the circles that briefly ousted them but seem willing to welcome them with open arms once a little time has passed.

For many Republican women, the issue of sexual misconduct knows no party. They’re frustrated with the support Roy Moore received after multiple women accused him of pursuing them when they were teenagers and with the fact that President Donald Trump has been accused of sexual misconduct by 19 women and has yet to face consequences. These women don’t always identify with the #MeToo movement, which they see as linked with liberal causes. Their own party, meanwhile, has shown little appetite for addressing the issue, and some are wary of speaking up about it for fear of being ostracized. That leaves Republican women who care about stopping harassment in a politically lonely position, and because of the realities of voter dynamics, that might not change anytime soon.

While the movement has forced the public to pay attention to choruses of women speaking up together, it hasn’t yet done the same for women who speak on their own. Whether or not Cosby is convicted this time around, the fact that the prosecution feels the need to call five women in addition to Constand is a sign that one woman’s voice does not equal one man’s. Even with a heightened awareness around sexual harassment and assault, one thing hasn’t changed: The American public is willing to ignore the words of one or even several women when they speak out against a high-profile man.

A Pew report, released on Wednesday, identified some similar concerns, with 21 percent of women saying that the increased focus on sexual harassment would lead to decreased opportunities for women in the workplace, and 31 percent saying that women falsely claiming sexual harassment or assault is a major problem today. In some workplaces now, “You have to tiptoe around people. You can’t even be yourself,” said one woman in a focus group Vox conducted with the polling firm PerryUndem. “That’s a problem I think a lot of men are facing.”

Quite a few boys participated in the walkout, but even some of them said they felt that speaking up about their feelings meant bucking expectations placed on them because of their gender. Soto, who read the poem, said he feels pressure as a boy “to act a certain way.” “We’ve always gotta act tough. We can’t show emotions. We’ve gotta be the alpha male,” he said. “It shouldn’t be that way.”

Those who have come forward publicly have helped others — many women, and some men, now feel safe speaking out after years of silence. Some who were brushed off or disbelieved have been vindicated. Some people no longer have to work alongside their harassers. These advances are real and valuable. It’s not yet clear, however, whether the swell of public testimony and the growing list of firings will lead to lasting change across industries.